


The Weight of Water

by tsiviaravina



Series: Faith, Hope, and Love [1]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angel Wings, Angst and Feels, Chloe KNOWS, F/M, Family Feels, Feels, Fluff, Now a series, Supernatural Elements, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 04:12:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18087206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsiviaravina/pseuds/tsiviaravina
Summary: Another post-reveal, and what faith, hope, and love can achieve.





	The Weight of Water

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING! Lucifer (TV) belongs to Netflix. Suing me for copyright infringement would make me giggle.
> 
> This has been sitting around my Evernote account, gathering dust, so I decided to shine it up a bit and post it.
> 
> Hope you enjoy this angsty, feels-heavy, fluffy bit.

Wings.

_Wings._

_He has wings._

And he uses them to protect her.

And then he uses them to disappear.

\--

When the cavalry finally arrives (late, as usual), they find her slightly stunned, sitting on the floor, and going through a pile of feathers in front of her. Ella tries to get her to let go of the feathers she holds so carefully, but Chloe simply shakes her head.

Ella doesn't press it. She has a pile of discarded feathers to work with, anyway.

Chloe carefully slips the large, white feathers that seem to glow from within into an envelope, away from prying eyes and fingers. Then she finally gives her statement.

For the first time in her career, she lies.

\--

The next day, on medical leave, Chloe goes to a small store she found years ago where a woman of indeterminate age and race looks at her and nods when Chloe shows her the feathers.

"He has to come back. He has to hear it and he has to come back. Can you do it?" Chloe whispers in the silence of the empty shop.

The woman puts the feathers back in the envelope and shrugs. "I can make it. He will hear. But whether he'll come back is not for me to say."

Chloe nods, once, in understanding.

"Come," the woman says, guiding her to a folding chair and a card table. "There are decisions you must make."

\--

One week passes.

Then two.

At the beginning of the third week, Chloe receives a package in the mail. 

She opens it with great care, Trixie watching intently.

"Will this bring him back, Mommy?" Trixie asks, her face grown pinched and anxious since the shooting of her mother, her father's grief, and Lucifer's sudden disappearance from her life.

"He's supposed to be able to hear it, baby," Chloe says. "But whether he comes back is up to him. It might not even be up to him. He may not...he may not be able to come back." 

Chloe gently peels back layers of tissue paper--blinding white, sky blue, sunset lavender, sunrise pink, seafoam green--until she reaches the treasure wrapped within. 

She lifts it out of the box. It is a fantasy of wood, metal, sea glass, shells, and crystal, anointed liberally with the stunningly white feathers. The metal chimes send out a call that comforts Chloe and Trixie. 

"Should we go hang it up?" mother asks daughter.

When they're finished hanging up the chimes where the light of the sun shimmers over each separate surface and the wind sets them to singing, Chloe finds two envelopes in the box, one labeled with her name and the other labeled with Trixie's.

They find silver hair clips decorated with the smaller of the white, iridescent feathers and tiny beads of clear and rose quartz, amethyst, fluorite, and aquamarine.

Chloe smiles when Trixie brushes her hair for the first time in days and carefully fastens the clip into her hair. 

"How does it look, Mommy?"

Chloe cradles her daughter's face in her hands.

"Beautiful, baby."

"You look beautiful."

\--

They listen to the singing of the chimes day and night. The feathers never fade in their brilliance. They each have nights when they clutch the hair clips like talismans tightly in one fist, holding the feathers to their lips, sometimes with tears, sometimes with anger, sometimes with the secrets and hopes of a young girl and the secrets and hopes of a grown woman.

Trixie goes to school.

Chloe is finally allowed to return to work.

One dark morning, there's a knock at the door over the sound of the chimes whipping in the storm-born winds.

When Chloe opens the door, he stands there, deity and supplicant, the rain pounding his shoulders, his wings bent under the weight of water and fear.

She draws him inside.

"Did you hear them?" she demands.

"I heard you. I heard both of you." He stands there, barefoot, bare-chested, and shivering, dripping rainwater on her carpet.

She gathers every towel in the house and turns the heat up. She turns her back as he steps out of his soaked trousers and wraps a bath sheet around his waist. He uses more towels to ease the water from his feathers. 

They start to dry at a preternatural speed.

"Lucifer?"

The small voice is even smaller than he remembers. Carefully keeping hold of the towel wrapped around his waist, he turns to see Trixie, her eyes shadowed and wary, watching him.

"Yes, Beatrice. It's me."

He watches her eyes trace his wings.

"Are they real?"

"Yes."

He starts when he sees his feathers in her fist.

His eyes fill with tears. 

"I'm so sorry, Beatrice. I had to go. For reasons that...that give me no excuse for hurting you and your mother the way that I did." He kneels, the Lord of Hell, in front of a tiny human girl, his posture, if not his words, begging for forgiveness.

Chloe watches her daughter take step by tentative step to the angel kneeling in their foyer.

"Can I..."

He unfurls and extends one magnificent wing towards her daughter, who touches it gently, stroking the feathers, following them into his arm, which he wraps around her. Her small arms easily find their place around his neck. "I _missed_ you, Lucifer," she sobs, accusation and relief in the sound. He curls his wing around the little girl in his embrace.

Chloe, tears streaming down her face, steps forward to stroke the two dark heads pressed together. Lucifer looks up at her touch, disbelief in his eyes.

"I thought you would hate me."

She kneels down to join the damp pile of child and angel on the floor. "Am I angry with you? Yes. But hate you? I tried and I couldn't. I _couldn't_ , Lucifer." She runs her hand over his other wing, entwining her fingers in the feathers. "But no more disappearing. No more running. You're either staying, or you leave right now. You don't know how...I can't _do_ this again."

He lifts his wing, letting her clamber underneath until she can bury her face in his unoccupied shoulder. He curls the wing around the three of them. 

"Never again," he promises. "I'll never leave you again," he says as they cry out their relief at his return.

"Let's get you into something warmer," Chloe eventually suggests. They help him to his feet and Chloe unearths a suitcase from her closet filled with his clothes. He raises an eyebrow at her. She blushes. "My insurance policy. For... _when_  you came back."

He presses a lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth and goes into the bathroom to change.

\--

When he comes out with his wings hidden away, he's in a set of black pajamas. He's just in time to help tote the last basket of towels to the laundry room.

He also helps tuck Beatrice back in bed.

"Are you staying, Lucifer?"

"I promise. I'll be here when you begin to watch your hideous standard Saturday-morning fare."

"Can you make chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast?"

"I think that can be arranged, yes."

He stays until she falls asleep.

\--

Now he is alone with Chloe and for a moment, all they can do is look at one another in wonder and disbelief. It's Chloe who draws him into her room, into her bed. She tucks herself against his body, her head under his chin. She hears a rustling sound, then feels a weight settle protectively over her.

He's covered them with a wing. She smiles and runs her fingers through the now dry but tangled feathers. "You need a good grooming," she teases him, delighted when he huffs and his feathers puff slightly at the comment.

"I am not a bloody parakeet."

"Still, your feathers are all tangled. But it can wait."

She laughs softly when he uses his wing to press her tight against him. "Yes, it can," he murmurs, and slides his hand into her hair. His kiss is tender, filled with apology and longing. She kisses him back with passion, forgiveness, and reassurance.

"Thank you," he whispers to her.

"You're welcome," she answers.

They lay together, exchanging kisses, breathing gently in tandem under a warm layer of pristine white, listening to the storm lash the windows. Chloe fights sleep for as long as she can, until Lucifer whispers, "I'll be in the kitchen making breakfast when you wake. I promise."

Chloe falls asleep to the sound of rain on the windows and Lucifer's heartbeat. 

She wakes to sunlight and the smell of pancakes, listening to her daughter laughing in delight and the singing of the chimes that called an angel home.

She pulls her hair back with the feathered clip and puts her birthday bullet necklace on before going to see what Trixie and Lucifer are doing to her kitchen.

She walks out to the kitchen to see Lucifer showing Trixie how to flip a pancake. He sees her and smiles, his smile turning into something close to awe as he sees her wearing his necklace and his feathers nestled in her hair. 

He turns off the burners under the griddle and walks over to Chloe, extending his wings in all their disheveled glory. He stops a few inches short of touching her. He reaches out to touch the feathers in her hair. "I heard you, Chloe. I heard you every time you called me," he tells her, tears in his voice, then on his face.

He takes a shaky breath.

"Can you forgive me for being afraid?"

She takes his hand and pulls him close. "Of course I forgive you. I love you, Lucifer. We _both_  love you."

She wraps her arms around him, feeling his arms tentatively embrace her, the way they did the first time she hugged him a lifetime ago.

She leans back slightly. "Lucifer, you're home safe. That's all we ever wanted," she tells him, wiping the tears from his face. 

He buries his head in her neck, shaking with sobs. When Trixie comes over to join the hug, Lucifer again wraps the three of them in his wings. 

"I'm home?" he asks them.

They both nod, sinking their fingers firmly in his tangled feathers. 

"I'm home," he whispers, clinging to them.

"I'm home."


End file.
